I was so excited to participate in the PEDIGREE Adoption Drive this morning knowing that their food donations would reduce feeding costs for shelters nationwide. Sadly, once I posted my support for the campaign and shared the link to my post (below), a friend alerted me to the Consumer Affairs complaint page. What I read there brought significant questions to mind. While I do not know Pedigree’s response to these complaints, the questions are nagging.
I hope Pedigree is safe for consumption and welcome any dialog from them. For now, I just don’t know.
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Four million beautiful dogs end up in US shelters and breed rescue organizations every year. PEDIGREE, with your help, wants to feed these fine dogs while they wait for their forever homes! The PEDIGREE Adoption Drive is raising awareness by donating a bowl of food to a shelter dog for every person who becomes a “Fan” or “Likes” the PEDIGREE Adoption Drive Facebook Page. (If you’re a blogger, read below to make that 20 lbs!) httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UtLDEoOQONY WRITE A POST AND HELP A DOG! For each blog that posts about the PEDIGREE Adoption Drive, from today through Sunday, September 19, PEDIGREE will donate a 20 pound bag of their new Healthy Longevity Food for Dogs to shelters nationwide. Why? Because most shelter dogs are more than 3 years old. Do the math: If 100 blogs publish a post about the PEDIGREE Adoption Drive, PEDIGREE will donate 2,000 pounds (That’s a TON!) of dog food to shelter dogs! There are three simple guidelines:
- One post per blog.
- Be sure your post counts. Make PEDIGREE donate 20 pounds of food by doing all of the following:
- Use #dogsrule when you announce your post on Twitter
- Use #dogsrule in your post
- Use #dogsrule as a ‘tag’ for your post
- Link to the PEDIGREE Adoption Drive Facebook fan page: http://www.facebook.com/Pedigree?ref=ts
- Join the BLOG HOP: Click on “Your next” after the link list below and enter the URL of your blog post NOT the URL of your Blog.
Need Content?
1. Tell your readers:
This year the PEDIGREE Adoption Drive is raising awareness about awesome homeless dogs by donating a bowl of food to a shelter dog for every person who becomes a “Fan” or “Likes” the PEDIGREE Adoption Drive on Facebook.
All they have to do is go to the PEDIGREE Adoption Drive Fan Page on Facebook to become a fan and help a dog. Here’s the link: http://www.facebook.com/Pedigree?ref=ts
2. Post this nifty yellow and blue badge and link it to the the PEDIGREE Adoption Drive Fan Page (http://www.facebook.com/Pedigree?ref=ts):
3. Insert the moving PEDIGREE® Adoption Drive “Million Fans” Video (above) into your post (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UtLDEoOQONY)
It’s that simple. Together we can help thousands of dogs! And this blog post, being the 50th, means a half ton of food is on it’s way to dogs that truly need it!
This is a tough call. The concept is so good. I am all for helping shelters. The food is clearly not the best but given a choice it beats hungry dogs.
The assumption here is that shelter dogs go hungry without Pedigree's involvement. This is simply not true. They will certainly eat and they may even eat food that is better than Pedigree.
I'm still not convinced that this food isn't dangerous. If it were just a matter of more filler, less nutrition, that would be less offensive than reading about animals avoiding meals from this brand or falling sick and dying after eating it.
There is another issue. I did not realize this until I read dancingdogblog.com post on corporate charity http://www.dancingdogblog.com/2010/09/corporate-c…
It appears as though they are donating 1,000 pounds of food. At 20lbs/bag that is 50 bags. When you consider they sent ten bloggers and a few PR people to BlogPaws all for a 50 bag donation it seems this is more marketing than donation. With some quick math they are spending 20-30 times the donation to promote the donation.
Here is my estimate. (Ten bloggers going to a conference probably $15,000. Three or four PR people attending a conference for three days probably another $10-15,000 plus travel.) So it looks like they spent $20-30,000 to give away 50 bags of food. I do not know what the food cost but at retail it is around $15-20. That seems a little absurd to me.
I'd say their money is well spent, Anthony.
$15,000 is a drop in the marketing bucket yet it bought the good will and loyalty of 375 bloggers, all their readers and a boost in positive search engine results that reach millions. Each person beyond th original 9 is spreading the word about how generous and compassionate Pedigree is – FOR FREE.
What better way to clear your name of all those awful and continuing reports about sick dogs than to have trusted bloggers say, "Wow. Look what this great company is doing!" — even if several of those same bloggers have gone so far to say they don't like the food and would never feed it to their own dogs.
This was never about donations. If Pedigree cared about dogs, they'd make better food. Period. This is about super charging their identity using the help of gullible yet trusted bloggers (myself included – until I looked deeper).
Now I'm not just angry about how how nutritionally devoid this food is and that it's being served to the neediest of dogs, but that the blogging community got used to spread lies about how great Pedigree is. My only consolation is that the amount of food being distributed is far less than I imagined. Thank you for pointing that out and thank goodness for the sake of those already compromised dogs.
For a healthy campaign who's doing it right, I'm going with http://www.ilovealldogs.org/. I can't wait to host them on http://BtC4animals.com next week and write about them for Blog the Change on the 15th.
PS I just commented on the great post you shared too. Thanks!
Hey Kim. This is very discouraging news. Since some of these complaints date to before this event, I'm so sorry I didn't do due diligence. We could have –maybe–gotten some answers before going forward that might, or might not, have made a difference.
I won't be promoting Pedigree either. I think it is fantastic that they promote rescue (& I believe they stopped backing Crufts, woot!), but that does not take away from the fact that their core business, dog food, is not quality and is, in fact, unhealthy.
Hi Kim here is a link to their newly developed food the one that will be given to the shelters. While it certainly isn't the best food I have seen it seems like a huge step up from their old formulas http://www.pedigree.com/really-good-food/product-…
I really have no idea about the food issues that you linked to. Try to @pedigreeUS on twitter and see if you can get some information. If they are around I am sure they will be willing to engage in a dialog with you.
I have added my name to the list too, without really checking into the food quality. I do not want these shelter dogs to receive unhealthy food, and I hope that the food is okay. It may not be the best quality, as Anthony says, but also hopefully not harmful.
I with Anthony and as Felissa notes, it is my understanding that for this specific campaign that we promoted, the food being donated was only bags of their new Healthy Longevity Food for Dogs. The ingredients are not the highest quality but better than going hungry.
Here part of the list:
Ground Yellow Corn, Chicken By-Product Meal, Brewers Rice, Ground Whole Wheat, Corn Gluten Meal, Animal Fat (Preserved with BHA and Citric Acid), Lamb, Plain Dried Beet Pulp, Vegetable Oil (Source of Linoleic Acid), Natural Flavor, Salt, Potassium Chloride, Calcium Carbonate, Monocalcium Phosphate, Fish Oil (Preserved with Mixed Tocopherols, a Source of Vitamin E), Dried Vegetables (Peas, Carrots),
Again, the assumption here is that animals would go hungry. They wouldn't. And with so many dogs allergic to corn, the largest filler and first in this ingredient list, I worry. With no varied meat sources, added salt, etc, this food fails the food rating tool on K9Cuisine.com.
I am certainly behind the sentiment of giving to shelters. But I cannot allow myself to be used by a corporation that knows they benefit financially from the free publicity of bloggers wanting to go good things only to raise their reputation and make more sales at the expense of family pets and, worse yet, shelter dogs who are already in a precarious situation.
I actually have an idea for a better way, but I can't do it alone. If enough bloggers contact with me interest, I'd be happy to share my plan.
You are wooftastic!!!! I is glad to see others helping our shelter cousins!
giant wet kisses!
Roscoe
Sadly, this review details what this campaign's food line is feeding to already compromised shelter dogs, and you're helping them do it.
This review is for their adult "Complete Nutrition" formula. Not so complete… In fact, it is nowhere near complete.
http://www.dogfoodanalysis.com/dog_food_reviews/s…
That Pedigree self labels as "really good food" and includes the term "healthy" in their dietary line-up is a complete fallacy.
You definitely know how to bring an issue to light and make it important.